KennyE wrote:Pyro and Pyrocat will not last long in a sodium sulfite and sodium carbonate solution. So I toss them out because they were dead. And if you use sodium hydroxides in them they will die even faster.

KennyE

Pyro is not stable when stored in alkaline conditions. Why would someone use sulphite or carbonate solutions for Pyro?

After re-reading my post, I discovered where I had made it confusing to understand my actions and ideas.

What I did was to take 1 oz. of my home brewed Rodinal and diluted it 1:80, and to it, I added the concentrated amounts of Pyro and Borax. What I had was an A, B, C formula of Rodinal, Pyro, and Borax.

I knew that Pyro does not last long in sulfite and carbonate solutions, and I became upset with myself, for leaving the mixtures around in my lab. So in cleaning up my lab..., I remembered that Rodinal, does not do well with Borax, if left in a mixed solution longer than 4 to 6 hours, the chemical solution will start to break down, and with the same being true with Pyro. Unless the solutions are highly diluted with water, which then will lengthen the time to about 8 plus hours. before the solutions are totally worthless.

So I made two separate solutions, one Pyro and the other Borax, and mixed them with the diluted Rodinal. The Rodinal needed to be diluted first, before adding the Pyro and Borax. Because unlike PMK, the sodium hydroxide and borax are not pre-mixed and I did not want the chemical reaction that takes place when one prepares PMK.

Since Rodinal already contains the hydroxide, I just needed to add the Borax to give me the Sodium Metaborate effect I wanted; about 10 ml. Then I add 20 ml the Pyro to get my p-Amino/Pyro combination I wanted.

This gave me even better results, because I believe that the borax helped to reduce the grain levels and improve edge effect and sharpness. Plus by controlling the amounts of Pyro and Borax levels independently, one may obtain a varying degree of results. In fact, I think that the amount of borax that I added was too low. So I will increase it by 2 ml enactments until I get the results that pleases me.